With a section taught by Chancellor Richard Englert, Why Care About College? examines student success, the evolution of higher education and the challenges institutions face today. 

Higher education has many purposes: to teach, to encourage critical thinking, to foster collaboration and research, to prepare students for future careers, to provide public services, to create community and to help students explore the world around them.

Because of this breadth, higher education's role in society is both essential and complex. The College of Education and Human Development now offers a class focused entirely on exploring that role, with an honors section taught by University Chancellor and former president Richard Englert. 

“My earlier focus when I first arrived at Temple University was on the politics of education, especially how education and American society are in a dynamic interaction,” Englert said. “This course was eventually a natural outgrowth of my interest in how higher education and the broader society continually shape each other.” 

Originally offered only as a GenEd U.S. Society course in 2015, the course is now offered with an Honors section. However, the principle behind it remains the same. 

The course’s syllabus is made up of three parts. The first focuses on best practices for learning; the second on how higher education institutions are founded, evolve, and operate, with Temple University as an example; and the third on current issues in higher education such as academic freedom, free speech, tenure, AI, rankings, college structures, and, ultimately, whether college is worth it. 

The first part of the course is built on the concept of “deep reading,” which involves closely reading a text of any kind, but especially physical, paper books and papers. For that reason, most course readings are printed out for the students, and many of students take notes by hand. Readings range from Ken Bains’ book What the Best College Students Do to excerpts from a U.S. Supreme Court case.  

“I enjoyed reading What the Best College Students Do,” said Gwyneth Calatan, a nursing major from Hatfield, Pennsylvania, who recommends the book to any college student. “It really showed me a different perspective on how I should manage myself as a college student and in life in general.” 

Each class begins with a review of the previous week’s material and a brief lecture on the assigned readings. Then students are broken into small groups to discuss the readings and their takeaways while Englert visits each group to pose questions, ask the students’ opinions and prompt discussion. 

One topic of lectures and discussions in this course has been the rise of AI usage in contemporary classrooms. Aligned with the readings about deep reading, the students learned about the dangers that accompany the conveniences of using language learning models like ChatGPT to complete school assignments. 

“AI is a big part of our world, and learning about how it is affecting our own cognitive thinking as students was shocking,” said Brett Bascones, a first-year early elementary education major from Worcester, Massachusetts. 

Bascones also said the content of this course intersected perfectly with both her life as a student and as a future educator. 

“I wanted to learn more about why universities do what they do, as well as more depth on the importance of getting a higher education,” she said. “I honestly wish that every student in the university could take this course.” 

Englert contends that his sort of base-level appreciation for the function and value of higher education in American culture is essential but missing from the educational field and public discussion at large.  

“My belief was and continues to be that students and the general public need a better understanding of the multiple roles college has in American life,” Englert said. “Classes like this could be the solution.”